Several local school districts look to have a fairly good chance of receiving funding for facility improvements, according to the Facilities Wealth Index, released Monday by the Arkansas Department of Education.

The wealth index will be used to determine what proportion of facilities projects will be funded by the school districts and what proportion will be funded by the state. The calculation is based on the value of one mill per average daily membership (ADM) for each school district at the 95th percentile.

Schools are ranked according to the proportion of approved facilities projects that will be funded as money is available. The lower its value of one mill per ADM, the higher a school district is ranked.

Among local districts, the Hector School District ranks the highest, with 73 percent of approved projects to be funded. Enrollment at Hector has been fairly consistent over the last three years at about 700 students, but one mill is worth only $29.

Other districts that have a good chance of receiving funding include Danville, which would be funded at 67 percent; Pottsville and Dover, both of which would be funded at 66 percent; and Atkins, which would be funded at 65 percent.

However, many administrators agree it's likely only a few districts will receive funding because there isn't much funding available.

Districts that have a high mill value, including Clarksville and Russellville, aren't likely to see much, if any state funding for facilities.

Although Clarksville is slated to receive funding for 46 percent of approved projects, business manager Freeman Wish said he doesn't expect the district to receive any money for facilities.

"This first round of funding is really designed for those schools who have buildings that are in very poor condition," Wish said. "Some of them have ceiling tiles missing or falling out or floors that are damaged or warped. They will get funding to make repairs, but schools like us don't have that type of need."

Russellville administrators haven't expected to receive facilities funding because an early proposal, which was very similar to the Facilities Wealth Index, excluded the district from the funding formula.

"It's not really a big surprise," Nathan Barber, assistant to the superintendent and business manager for the Russellville School District, said. "Because the state sees us as a district that has a lot of local wealth, our ranking is very low. We aren't scheduled to receive any money at all for facilities."

Ten school districts, including Russellville, are excluded from facilities funding according to the wealth index. Those school districts also rank the lowest in the public education funding formula in the amount of state funding they receive.

According to a report from the Arkansas Statewide Educational Facilities Assessment (ASEFA), $2.3 billion worth of improvements were needed to the state's educational facilities.

The report prioritized facility improvements, including recommended construction or repairs, into four areas based on immediate need.

The first priority deals with health and safety issues; the second with mechanical, electrical and other systems that impact the functioning of the school; the third with finishes, site improvements and other short term conditions; and the fourth with program enhancements, aesthetics and the least critical improvements.

According to the ASEFA, Hector has $5.4 million worth of improvements needed to its facilities. In the first year, however, the report states only $401,212 needs to be spent. That cost includes $119,027 in the category of technology, which includes pubic address and intercom systems, computer technology infrastructure, and telephones.

Hector had only $45,109 classified as being imperative for health and safety reasons.

In December, when the ASEFA was first released, Hector Superintendent Eric Armour said he believed the costs were too high because they were based on life cycles of materials instead of the actual condition of a school's facilities.

"Some of our buildings would not need a lot of money put back into them," Armour said. "But, the older your building is, the more it's going to cost to bring that up to a certain condition. We don't have very much in the No. 1 priority to get things together, but, in the second priority, they say we need to spend a tremendous amount of money."